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Article MASONIC VIEWS IN THE ILIAD AND ODYSSEY. ← Page 2 of 6 →
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Masonic Views In The Iliad And Odyssey.
Even the apparently fairy or fictitious palace of Alcinous , when divested of its poetic lustre , will be found to be , in all essential points , nothing more than what truly might have been , and in all probability really was ; and which , if not existant in the particular spot alleged , had at any rate its prototype somewhere . Pope has given a glowing painting of this combination of Masonry and metallurgy ; but we shall be satisfied with Cowper ' s severer copy , as brilliant enough for ordinary optics ; and even the eagle eye of Ulysses could scarcely stand the intensity of the original glare .
"For a light he saw As of thc sun or moon illuming bright llie palace of Phccacia's mighty king . Walls plated bright with brass , on either side Stretched from the portal to the interior house With azure cornice crowned : the doors were gold Whieh shu t the palace fast ; silver the posts , Reared on a brazen threshold , and above The lintels silver , architraved with gold . Mastiffs in gold and silver lined the approach On either side , with an celestial framed
Ry Vulcan , guardians of Alcinous' gate For ever , unobnoxious to decay . Sheer from the threshold to the interior house Fixed thrones the walls through all their length adorned , Willi mantles overspread of subtlest warp Transparent , work of many a female hand . On these the princes of Pho _ acia sat . Holding perpetual feasts , while golden youths On all the sumptuous altars stood , their hands With burning torches charged , which night by night Shed radiance over all the festive throng . "
Such was the wondrous mansion of Phceacia s monarch—one of the most elaborated domestic delineations that we have in Homer , followed up as it is by the highly interesting description of the gardens attached to the palace . The latter may find their semblance at this day in various parts of those soft-climed isles now named Ionian , more particularly in Corfu itself , the imagined scene of Alcinous' sway , though the golden glories of the ancient palace may seem difficult to be paralleled in modern that Barbaric
times without the aid of Aladdin ' s lamp . Nevertheless , splendour , those gilded gates ancl ornaments , are quite consistent with the display natural to a rich island chief , whose sea-faring subjects were , it is to be suspected , little better than buccaneers or rovers , a profession exercised with hereditary activity by their descendants up to the present century , when the British took the Ionian islands under their protection , and put a period to the Corsair trade in those seasat least .
, The sly way in which the ancient mariners landed Ulysses asleep on his own island , and shipped themselves off again , showed that they did not wish to have too much to do with their neighbours in daylight ; and the only wonder was , that they were not tempted to throw him overboard for the sake of the shining cargo which their king had stowed in the galley as a gift to the shipwrecked chief . But to return to the littering abode of Alcinous . Its brazen-cased
g walls were certainly no fiction—as is borne out by the remains of the nearly coeval structure called the Treasury of Atreus , in Argos , where the existence of . large brazen pins or nails in the interior dome attest that the surface was formerly lined with a coating of brass . And if thiSiWas applied inside of tbe one building , it might also bave been used in , the exterior of the other . Whether these metallic lamina ? were Intended . for strength , or ornament to the walls , does not . distinctly
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Masonic Views In The Iliad And Odyssey.
Even the apparently fairy or fictitious palace of Alcinous , when divested of its poetic lustre , will be found to be , in all essential points , nothing more than what truly might have been , and in all probability really was ; and which , if not existant in the particular spot alleged , had at any rate its prototype somewhere . Pope has given a glowing painting of this combination of Masonry and metallurgy ; but we shall be satisfied with Cowper ' s severer copy , as brilliant enough for ordinary optics ; and even the eagle eye of Ulysses could scarcely stand the intensity of the original glare .
"For a light he saw As of thc sun or moon illuming bright llie palace of Phccacia's mighty king . Walls plated bright with brass , on either side Stretched from the portal to the interior house With azure cornice crowned : the doors were gold Whieh shu t the palace fast ; silver the posts , Reared on a brazen threshold , and above The lintels silver , architraved with gold . Mastiffs in gold and silver lined the approach On either side , with an celestial framed
Ry Vulcan , guardians of Alcinous' gate For ever , unobnoxious to decay . Sheer from the threshold to the interior house Fixed thrones the walls through all their length adorned , Willi mantles overspread of subtlest warp Transparent , work of many a female hand . On these the princes of Pho _ acia sat . Holding perpetual feasts , while golden youths On all the sumptuous altars stood , their hands With burning torches charged , which night by night Shed radiance over all the festive throng . "
Such was the wondrous mansion of Phceacia s monarch—one of the most elaborated domestic delineations that we have in Homer , followed up as it is by the highly interesting description of the gardens attached to the palace . The latter may find their semblance at this day in various parts of those soft-climed isles now named Ionian , more particularly in Corfu itself , the imagined scene of Alcinous' sway , though the golden glories of the ancient palace may seem difficult to be paralleled in modern that Barbaric
times without the aid of Aladdin ' s lamp . Nevertheless , splendour , those gilded gates ancl ornaments , are quite consistent with the display natural to a rich island chief , whose sea-faring subjects were , it is to be suspected , little better than buccaneers or rovers , a profession exercised with hereditary activity by their descendants up to the present century , when the British took the Ionian islands under their protection , and put a period to the Corsair trade in those seasat least .
, The sly way in which the ancient mariners landed Ulysses asleep on his own island , and shipped themselves off again , showed that they did not wish to have too much to do with their neighbours in daylight ; and the only wonder was , that they were not tempted to throw him overboard for the sake of the shining cargo which their king had stowed in the galley as a gift to the shipwrecked chief . But to return to the littering abode of Alcinous . Its brazen-cased
g walls were certainly no fiction—as is borne out by the remains of the nearly coeval structure called the Treasury of Atreus , in Argos , where the existence of . large brazen pins or nails in the interior dome attest that the surface was formerly lined with a coating of brass . And if thiSiWas applied inside of tbe one building , it might also bave been used in , the exterior of the other . Whether these metallic lamina ? were Intended . for strength , or ornament to the walls , does not . distinctly